Screen Dump 246

You sleep through solicitations
and are ticketed for doing 62 on the off ramp
claiming Black Friday
and a Magical Mystery Tour of Wicker at Pier 1 . . .
A concave mirror intrudes . . .
You see yourself flirting
with a fact-checker
whose life resembles a cookie cutter . . .
dropping facets faster than names . . .
which no sooner skip to freedom
through an artichoke grove . . .
Someone insists a barn swallow . . .
You have something else in mind
a vestige of one of your deep fantasies . . .
an inferno of arms and legs . . .
Do you recall packing for the weekend . . .
worrying that your tablet would hang? . . .
I thought not! . . .
Indeed he/she did in fact hang on your every bite
working through that log of braciole . . .
though it was apparent that Bela Lugosi
at the other table had rung the wrong bell . . .
A tad ticklish . . . to say the least . . .

Phillip Messmann

Screen Dump 245

They're talking doorbusters . . .
but you are trying to pace yourself
sacred in your innocence
editing notes you've jotted down
from the notebook
of your cubemate . . .
You like to jump fences
and feed birds who ride the rails . . .
Take down the tree, they say . . .
You ignore them . . .

Ahmet Polat

Screen Dump 244

The body unfolds . . . from a night of nightmares . . .
ignoring joint pain . . . GERD . . .
dissonant chapters in out-of-print books . . .
It recoils . . . and enters a whitewashed room
to collect itself . . . and the empties . . .
circling . . . and circling . . .
trying not to make eye contact . . .
trying not to engage (enrage?) others . . .
The choreography is deformed . . . preposterous . . .
Words await words . . .
as news continues to pummel commuters . . .
The world . . . out of balance . . . torqued . . .

Lydia Roberts

Screen Dump 243

You wake with Emily Brontë . . . in your head . . .
and begin the day on page 216 . . .
The whacher (her spelling) . . . watches kites circle prey . . .
as the days of your life open
to the middle chapters
hewn in a wild workshop (Charlotte on Wuthering Heights)
which at best (lately) are lackluster
and could use a fresh coat of paint
like the eyesore down the block . . .
You ignore the lookalike crouching in the corner
a would-be wannabe . . . who cameo'd on Wheel of Fortune . . .
lusting after Vanna White . . . and Pat Sajak . . .
The tale of two tongues? . . .
Where did all this come from? . . .
Surely a MacArthur Fellow . . .
had she not predeceased John D and Catherine T . . .
There are other items on your to-do list
which most likely will get back-burnered . . . given the bareness . . .
of diagramming incomplete sentences to feed your OCD . . .
your biographers . . . as well as the limp but happy stalkers
from the House of the Rising Sun . . . appeased . . .
Overhearing only the first half of the sentence? . . .
But then . . . with the playoffs . . . a bit of calm . . .

Emily Brontë